William Finck CNT Translation 'Born From Above' Reasoning John | Heirs of the Promise

William Finck CNT Translation "Born From Above" Reasoning
John 3

This phrase, “from above”, is from the Greek word ἄνωθεν and is more popularly translated as “again” in the KJV and other versions. But the word does not properly mean again, and I have found no place in Scripture or other contemporary Greek writings where it must be interpreted to mean again. It is an adverb describing the direction from which something comes, or its source or origin. It is the opposite of another adverb, κάτωθεν, which means “from below”. The preposition ἀνά basically means up, and its opposite is κατά, basically means down.

According to Liddell & Scott, ἄνωθεν means “I. adverb of place from above, from on high, 2. = ἄνω, above, on high, II. of Time, from the beginning… by descent, [and finally] 2. over again, anew,” against which I would protest, and where they cited only the New Testament, customarily providing the translations which are found in the Authorized KJV. But in the Intermediate version of their lexicon they offered no other citations in the secular writings where the word was used to mean anew or again. The larger 9th edition of the lexicon does cite a passage from Flavius Josephus, however the citation is not convincing. William Whiston translated a line where Josephus wrote of Abimilech in reference to Isaac and said that he “renewed his friendship with him”. However we would write the same phrase to state that he “turned to the friendship he made with him from the beginning”, as the word ἄνωθεν is an adverb, and not a verb as Whiston translated it [τραπέντος φιλίαν ἄνωθεν ποιεῖται πρὸς αὐτὸν]. Whiston took three words, two verbs and an adverb, and translated them as one word in English, “renewed”. Rather, in the context of the account, τραπέντος should be he turned, ποιεῖται he made, and ἄνωθεν from the beginning, since Josephus was describing the “former friendship” which the two men had, and how it may have been ruined. With that, we see that there is no valid reason why ἄνωθεν should be interpreted as anew or again in this passage [Antiquities 1:263].

For a proper example of the use of the word ἄνωθεν from the Septuagint, we see in Ezekiel 41:7, in the famous description of the temple, we read: “7 And the breadth of the upper side was made according to the projection out of the wall, against the upper one round about the house, that it might be enlarged above [ἄνωθεν], and that men might go up to the upper chambers from those below [κάτωθεν], and from the ground-sills to the third story.” The Greek words ἄνωθεν and κάτωθεν are correctly translated as above and below in this passage. Likewise, a phrase which appears several times in the Greek Septuagint, in both Genesis and in the prophets, is ὁ οὐρανὸς ἄνωθεν, which is literally the heaven above.

ἄνωθεν appears 23 times in the Greek of the Septuagint, and on every occasion it means from above, above or atop. However on one occasion, where once again we shall dispute the translation, Sir Francis Brenton in his version of the Septuagint rendered the phrase πάλιν ἄνωθεν as “again anew”, following the KJV Apocrypha in ch 19, verse 6, of the Wisdom of Solomon. This very verse gives us insight into just what Christ referred to in His statement here in John Ch 3. The word πάλιν literally means again, and if ἄνωθεν is also understood to mean again, or anew, then the phrase is utterly redundant. But in that passage the phrase πάλιν ἄνωθεν is used as part of an allegory to describe the Exodus event and the giving of the law to Israel as being a creation of God, with language which places the event in a comparison with the creation account of Genesis. Therefore, since it describes an act of creation as being from God, the word ἄνωθεν must be interpreted as “from above”, where Solomon wrote, and where we shall correct Brenton’s version: “For the whole creature [creation] in his proper kind was fashioned again [πάλιν] from above [ἄνωθεν, meaning, fashioned by God], serving the peculiar commandments that were given unto them, that thy children might be kept without hurt….”